For a moment, the air around him seemed to turn into water.
It seemed like he was going to drown. Mockery, pity, and a sense of guilt towards her naivety. Aside from the inexplicable and complex emotions that were flooding in.
He wanted to break her down as calmly as he always was, as if it was nothing… He didn’t know why he kept getting angry. Why it was getting harder and harder to do something that was not that big of a deal. Why was he so hesitant when it came to her?
Why he hated being like this.
“Are you cold?”
Yoo-hwa cautiously asked.
“What is it?”
“If you’re not cold or tired… let’s go see the night view for a while.”
“…”
“There was a notice stating that passage will be blocked soon. I thought it would be good to go there one more time before that.”
Since this will probably be the last time.
At the words that Yoo-hwa silently added, Woo-hyun pulled the scarf with his hand and loosened it. However, he was still suffocating.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Still, he thought that it would be better than going home in this state.
Yoo-hwa headed for a small open area next to a collapsed villa. There was an old bench there. If they sat on the bench and turned their head to the side, they could see the night view. It was a place that could not be seen before when it was packed with villas.
She found this place by accident today, on her way back from looking for a job search newspaper. It was written that passage would be blocked soon. She stood still as she remembered looking at the night view with Woo-hyun, and then saw an empty area with materials stacked next to it.
Although it had only been a few months since she lived here, it was the first time she had found out about both the empty area, and the fact that there was a bench there. On top of being hidden by a large tree, it was a habit to keep her head down every time she walked on the road, so she couldn’t see it until now.
As soon as she saw it, Yoo-hwa thought of Woo-hyun. She waited all day because she wanted to come with him. For some reason, she didn’t think that Woo-hyun would say no.
Woo-hyun was sitting on the bench in the same position as she had imagined. The way he sat with his back against the back of the bench, legs outstretched, he didn’t seem to feel much cold. In comparison, as the goosebump-inducing cold wind blew, physiological tears formed around Yoo-hwa’s eyes. Wiping them with the back of her hand, Yoo-hwa continued to stare at the night sky, full of colorful lights.
“Why did you suddenly ask to see the night view?”
Woo-hyun, who had been staring at the night view the whole time, asked. The wind stopped and his voice was clearly heard.
“I remembered that you were looking at it the other day.”
“…”
It sounded like she had thought of him the whole day.
“And I wanted to make memories in other places, not just at home.”
“…”
“One day, the house will disappear, but I’ll be able to see the night view from anywhere.”
Woo-hyun thought that she was talking like a person who was about to die.
“Actually, I wanted to go to a pretty cafe. But I don’t think I would be able to focus much there.”
“Why wouldn’t you be able to focus there? I think it would be better than the cold wind.”
“I’m a little uncomfortable… if there are a lot of people.”
“…”
“It’s colder than I thought, isn’t it? Shall we go back?”
Yoo-hwa carefully turned her head and asked. Although he felt Yoo-hwa’s gaze touching his cheeks, Woo-hyun kept his eyes on the night view.
“If you are scared of people like that, how are you going to work?”
He returned an unexpected question. Yoo-hwa’s expression became indistinct for the first time in a while.
“It’s okay if I get a job at something like a factory where I have to wear an overgarment.”
“…”
“People are tired at those kinds of places, so they don’t care much about each other.”
“…”
“Well, I just think that, if that strange letter doesn’t come, my social phobia will disappear.”
Yoo-hwa’s face as she tried to speak calmly overlapped with Yoo-hwa’s face from when she was in middle school. Although she was a lot different from back then, she also looked similar for the first time.
“Let’s go now.”
A needle-like cold pierced his body. They had nothing to stop the wind, so they couldn’t stay for long. On the way home, Woo-hyun mostly listened, and Yoo-hwa talked every now and then. They got home in less than 5 minutes because it was not far away.
“Woo-hyun.”
As Yoo-hwa called him, he held back a sigh that was about to come out. He didn’t have to look at Yoo-hwa’s face under the pretext of looking at the night view when they went to see it.
But now, he was in a situation where it would be suspicious if he didn’t make eye contact. Woo-hyun turned his head reluctantly.
Although it was dark, the moment he met Yoo-hwa’s eyes, looking straight at him, an unfounded impulse violently came up. A dizzyingly strong emotion whirled through him.
“What is it?”
Woo-hyun asked, barely holding back that impulse. Then, Yoo-hwa reached out her phone.
“Here.”
He frowned. There was no way she noticed the wiretapping device.